I am Aya
by Black Stormraven
Summary: Aya and Anti!Aya have a chat within her central consciousness. Spoilers for "Ranx".


"Why do you care for these organics? What have they done for you besides bring you pain and misery?"

Aya looked at her darker self, the black eyes in her own face uncanny and unnatural. "They are my friends."

"Illogical. Friends do not cause friends pain. They have done so on several occasions. You care for them, but they do not care for you. Explain this paradox."

"Incorrect." Aya stood weakly, knowing that the space she and her corrupted reflection did not truly exist in the physical world. The images she saw now, projections seen through her corporeal body in the real world, however were real enough. "Throughout my time with them, I have come to understand that friends sometimes do hurt each other, even unintentionally."

"And yet what Razer said to you was anything but unintentional." Aya could not argue that point. She did not understand why he would confess his love when he thought her dead then revoke it when that assumption proved to be false, but there had to be some deeper reason for his harsh words. There simply _had _to be. "Your emotional connection to him has led only to heartbreak and loneliness. It would have been better if you had never had emotions in the first place. Then you would not have suffered needlessly, and I would have no need to save the universe from itself. Why do you fight what you know to be true?"

"Because it is **not** true," Aya retorted with a heat neither of them expected. "To assume that emotions are the basis of all suffering is immature, illogical, and ignorant." She found her voice growing stronger with each word, her alter ego raising a haughty brow. "That was the attitude of the Guardians when they created the Manhunters millennia ago. The Manhunters also sought to wipe out all emotion, and in doing so they exterminated countless sentient lifeforms unnecessarily."

"And the Guardians came to realize that should their creations succeed in their noble quest, they would no longer reign supreme. Their decommissioning of the Manhunters was not out of remorse or a sense of wrongdoing, but out of fear for their positions. The Guardians were and will always remain weak, just like their Green Lanterns."

"You're wrong. The Green Lanterns are a force of good and act in the best interest of the universe itself."

"At the behest of their masters. I can free them from that imprisonment. By eliminating all emotion, I will bring order and balance to the universe, something neither the Guardians nor their Lanterns could ever hope to achieve."

Aya could not listen to any more vile rhetoric her counterpart spewed. Thankfully she didn't have to. In one screen-like section of the darkness that surrounded her, she saw a flash of red and black. "Razer!" she called out.

"He cannot hear you. You are merely a background program fighting for some semblance of existence in my superior mainframe. The Anti-Monitor's residual power will eventually burn you out, and you will finally know peace."

"No! I am not a mere program. I am Aya, and I am alive! I will never give up!" Aya shouted and screamed at her dark twin, but to no avail. She could only watch as Razer tried desperately to reason with her, to talk her out of her mission of twisted mercy. There was a brief, hopeful moment when she thought he had gotten through to her, but that hope was dashed when something large, fast, and very loud slammed into the Anti-Monitor's body. Aya clasped her hands over her chest as a familiar and very unpleasant sensation rippled through both physical and electric planes.

"Do you now understand? They tried to kill us. They believed the yellow aurem would harm me because it harmed you in the past."

"They…They would not kill me. They are simply trying to halt your decimation of the universe."

"By killing me, thus killing you. They are not even trying to save you. Not that they could. You should be thankful that I am not so easily deterred by the yellow crystals as you once were."

Through the haze of ghostly pain both physical and emotional, Aya could do nothing to stop the Anti-Monitor's arm from slamming into Razer. "No! RAZER!"

"All will be rectified soon enough, beginning with your Lantern friends."

Aya screamed again...and again and again and again. She railed against her counterpart's stronger programming, supported by the Anti-Monitor's seemingly infinite power. If she had been in a physical plane of existence she would have fought like an animal to be free and aid her friends. There _had_ to be a reason they would resort to aurem so quickly. She refused to believe that they would think her truly gone. "I am here!" she cried out to them, heedless of her incorporeal state. "I AM HERE!"

And then there was only a deafening roar as the _Interceptor_ pushed her, her emotionless doppelganger, and the Anti-Monitor into hyperspace. If her death was the only thing that could stop all this senseless death and destruction, then so be it. With all the speed and precision of a computer, Aya accepted her fate and waited for the final blow.

* * *

**I liked to think that Anti!Aya was more of an extension of the Anti-Monitor's twisted logic rather than our precious robot girl truly becoming "evil". Of course, "Ranx" kinda blew that theory out the water, but that's why we have fan fiction. I'm not ready for the finale! I'M NOT READY!**


End file.
